$10m liability insurance plan

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Legislation requiring building management committees to take out public liability insurance up to $10 million per claim will be enforced later this year.

The Home Affairs Bureau yesterday outlined the details of the mandatory insurance requirements for residential building blocks.

The insurance will serve to compensate people accidentally killed or injured due to poor maintenance of buildings, but will not cover property damage, according to the bureau.

Under the plan, residents who have formed their own management corporations will have to insure for up to $10 million per claim.

There are 6,155 owners' corporations covering 20 per cent of residential blocks.

The proposal was raised after a court ruling in 1997 that households of an uninsured residential block in Mongkok had to share the $25.7 million in compensation to a plumber who was paralysed after he fell from an unsafe structure.

The Legislative Council last year endorsed the mandatory insurance with the enforcement date to be decided by the Executive Council.

In a paper to legislators, the bureau said the plan would be enforced by subsidiary legislation due in the second half of this year.

The Bureau stopped short of saying how much residents were expected to pay for the $10 million insurance premium.

James To Kun-sun of the Democrats said he believed the money to be shared would be affordable to most residents.

But he said he would ask the Government whether the premium was too high for old buildings.